Dear Readers:
The holidays are a time when we think more often of sharing our abundance with others. I'm sure that many of you are now considering how to give of your time and money this season to help those for whom the holidays are a difficult practical hurdle. In this vein, I'd like to tell you the following true story.
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It was a week or so before Christmas, 2002. My family, which consists of my husband and I, our then 1-year-old daughter, and our then 17-year-old foster son, was anticipating a quiet holiday at home, having for once no travel plans. Our tree was up and twinkling in our small, unassuming rental duplex. The pile of gifts underneath it, most mailed to us from well-off relatives all over the nation, was enormous. We planned to have bagels for Christmas breakfast and make a ham dinner later-- our foster son loves ham. Yeah, all right, we'd financed our Christmas to some degree on credit. We didn't buy anyone a digital camera or expensive jewelry. But we felt perfectly comfortable; we had everything we needed and most of what we wanted.
Then the mail came. There was an envelope with the return address of our church, which at that time we all attended. We figured it was yet another invitation to pledge. But, when we opened the envelope, there was nothing but a check for $200. No note of explanation. No nothing.
Bewildered, my husband called the church and spoke with the minister's wife, supposing that some mistake had been made, perhaps, on the payroll. But Mary said it was "a gift."
Let me tell you, I cried, but not with joy. My foster son, who'd spent most of his life on the receiving end of charity, and believed he'd finally escaped that position of abjection, began to storm around. My husband-- who is not a proud man-- thought it was a nice gesture (people are different). But I was overcome with shame.
This reaction may seem mysterious to you if you have never been put in a similar position (I hadn't previously), so I'll try to explain it a little more. We'd belonged to this church for years, and been moderately active within it. I did notice that there were certain differences between us and many of the wealthy members-- the clothes we wore on Sunday weren't as nice, for instance, and our car was old, and we only put a couple of bucks into the collection plate. But we did put money into the collection plate every week, and I for one didn't want it all back. And I figured this was a church: what we wore, what we drove didn't matter, only spiritual fellowship. (Only a naive girl who'd never belonged to a church till she was 28 could believe this, right?) People seemed friendly. People thought our baby was cute, and praised our teenaged son. I liked singing together.
But I never dreamed the deacons of our church thought we were The Noble Poor. Suddenly a vast rift opened up between us and the rest of the congregation, the ones who weren't deemed needy, and didn't receive $200 Christmas checks. I felt about as self-conscious as I'd ever felt in my life, except it wasn't just about my body or my personality, it was about my home and my family and my possessions and all the myriad choices that had created our "simple" lifestyle.
We didn't keep the money. For one thing, we didn't need it-- in the same day's post arrived another $200 check, from my dad, an irony that felt keen. We also didn't want it. We didn't want to be marked, against our will, for charity; and we were really sort of appalled that our church couldn't think of anything better to do with their funds. But our church didn't want it back, so we donated it to the food bank.
I've never felt comfortable at that church since. Call it the sin of pride; but I don't like being there.
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Once I learned, for the first time, what it felt like to be the recipient of charitable giving, I began to approach giving differently. I steer clear of programs which promise to "deliver" Christmas joy and Christmas stuff to the needy, a delivery which may cause more embarrassment than delight. Consider the following, written by Marvin Olasky of WORLD magazine, and quoting "veteran poverty-fighter Bob Lupton":
The first [passage] describes the way Christian groups have typically helped children to have a Merry Christmas: "I gathered lists of needy families with the names, ages, sizes, and special needs of their children and matched them with families who would deliver on Christmas Eve a bounty of delicious food and wonderful presents."
A great idea, right? Read on: One year "as we sat in the living rooms of the poor when the gift-bearing families arrived, we saw something that had escaped our attention before. The children, of course, danced with excitement at the stacks of presents arriving at their door. And the mothers were generally gracious to their well-dressed benefactors, though they seemed self-conscious and subdued. But the fathers, upon hearing the knock at the door, would disappear from the room and not return until the gift givers had departed. For the first time a darker side of our giving tradition became evident. I saw parents in their own homes, in front of their children, being exposed for their inability to provide for their families. Our system of kindness was destroying their pride.
Similar shame can be caused by plans which require the "giving" to take place in public; my foster son tells me how much he hated the Christmas giveaways at big box stores, where needy kids would be set free in the aisles to find themselves a present. He'd take the loot, because he was a kid. But every time he and his family accepted this kind of gift, they felt demeaned as well.
It feels good for you, your family, or your business to be a patron. But it doesn't feel good to be patronized.
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So what can we do to help families afford a holiday celebration? There was a reason I donated that check to the food bank. There are many ways in which utilizing the services of the food bank seems more dignified to me than being directly "gifted" by those more fortunate.
- Food bank recipients are self-selected-- no "surprise" charity moments.
- The food bank exchange is relatively formal and businesslike. One food bank describes the intake process like this:
First we are required to conduct a brief interview to verify eligibility. The interview form includes the number of family members in your household, income sources and amounts, residency, and other relevant data. Once the interview is complete, and you qualify for the Food Bank, you may immediately pick up your first food basket. At each visit thereafter we verify your information, noting any changes. To enroll please stop by the Food Bank during normal business hours for an interview. No advanced notice is necessary.
3) In general, you don't have to jump through too many hoops to qualify. My local food bank says this:
The Gallatin Valley Food Bank exists to help people who have an emergency need for food.
Emergency need means that the family has run out of food and has no money or food stamps to purchase more food.
Because there is a limited supply of food at the food bank, we limit the frequency of visits to the clients to no more than once every thirty (30) days.
Please be as sincere and honest as possible about your circumstances and your needs.
We are very glad to be here to help you and hope to be able assist many others.
There's an eligibility requirement: you're eligible if you don't have any food or any money. No further questions asked.
4) Use of the food bank is not explicitly holiday-related. Therefore, if times are tight around the holidays, you can use the food bank to help handle your basic needs while you spend a bit extra on arranging your own, modest, holiday celebration. Psychologically, this seems to me less demeaning than having somebody deliver you a Christmas dinner.
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This is an important year to remember our food banks. Donations this autumn to disaster relief have been large, but have diminished the flow of money to some of our perennial local institutions, and they are hurting. Several articles on this topic appeared around Thanksgiving, including this one:
After Hurricane Katrina, Americans sent waves of trucks loaded with food to the many thousands of people driven from their homes by the storm. But that generosity may have had a hidden cost.
Some hunger-relief charities in cities far from the disaster are reporting a decline in donations, largely because many contributors have been sending food to the Gulf Coast instead.
The Food Bank for New York City, which supplies 1,300 soup kitchens and food pantries, said it collected about 2.4 million pounds of food in the past four months, 1 million fewer pounds than it gathered during the same period last year.
"We are tapping into our reserves," said spokeswoman Lisa Jakobsberg. "I have not seen our shelves as empty as they are right now since 9/11."
The Los Angeles Regional Food Bank said donations have declined about 12 percent.
In Milwaukee, an annual fall food drive held by a regional food bank collected 19,216 pounds of food, down from 40,594 pounds last year. One reason: Only 49 schools volunteered to be collection points, compared with 103 in 2004.
"We heard specifically from many of the schools that the reason why they weren't collecting this year was that they had already collected for Katrina victims in September," said Gina Styer, spokeswoman for the Wisconsin chapter of America's Second Harvest, the nation's largest network of food banks.
Reports a similar article, "three out of four agencies that help the poor say it will be harder to do so this holiday season because the need is greater."
Of course, for many people this is a hard year economically, as well. Yesterday's recommended diary by boran2 documented the fact that food aid is not necessarily expanding to offset this year's rising heating and other energy costs. Most of us who don't live in ivory towers are aware that times are tough. So the demand on food banks is likely to be greater than ever this year.
My local food bank reports the following list of reasons why people tell them they need food assistance (many people have multiple reasons, so the numbers don't add up to 100%):
Childcare Expenses 7%
Public Assistance Cuts 8%
Repair Bills 13%
Food Stamps Exhausted 20%
Disability 22%
Health Care 27%
Unemployment 32%
Rent/Mortgage 33%
Utilities 34%
Low Wage/Fixed Income 58%
When you give to the food bank, it's great to give whatever excess stuff you've got hanging around your cupboard. But, if you are going to spend additional money on the donation, please consider giving it to the food bank as cash rather than purchasing food items and putting them in a bin somewhere. Giving money allows the food bank to fill in important gaps, as a lot of their inventory comes from grocery overstock and is often not well-balanced or predictable. If you have ever used or volunteered at a food bank, you will realize that the assortment of food available is frequently rather bizarre. Your money will help families receive a nutritious and well-balanced food basket.
Please also consider giving again -- or instead-- just after the holidays. This may be when people are totally tapped out, and it's certainly when food bank donations drop off precipitously. And it's still cold out.
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Friday Food Politics is unlikely to appear next week. Please enjoy the winter solstice-timed holiday of your choice, eat well, and don't get crushed by all the presents. Give your kids a little kiss from me.--r.g.